The Big Valley

Did You Know?

• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the first season on DVD in Region 1 on May 16, 2006.
• Timeless Media Group acquired the rights to the series on January 8, 2014, and subsequently released seasons 2, 3, and the fourth and final season on DVD.

Cast and characters

Victoria Barkley, played by Barbara Stanwyck, runs the Barkley ranch and leads her wealthy family in 19th-century Stockton, California. She is the widow of Thomas Barkley, who died six years before the series starts. Stanwyck’s choice to play Victoria as anything but fragile stirred debate at the time. Victoria loves all her children, including Heath, her late husband’s illegitimate son, whom she calls “my son.” Stanwyck appeared in 103 of 112 episodes, often in tough plots: locked in an asylum to silence her as a murder witness, forced into a prison wagon to replace a dead convict, posing as a thief to investigate a women’s prison, or stuck underground after a cave-in. Jarrod Thomas Barkley, the eldest, is a lawyer played by Richard Long. He is the most refined and calm of the brothers, managing the family’s legal and business matters. Though he prefers the courtroom, Jarrod will use frontier violence when pushed. In one episode, he marries briefly, but his wife is killed by a bullet meant for him; he then hunts the killer and nearly strangles him before his brothers stop him. Jarrod served as a Union cavalry officer in the Civil War, commanding a troop of black soldiers. Long appeared in 98 episodes.

Background and production

The series was based loosely on the Hill Ranch, located at the western edge of Calaveras County near Stockton. The Hill Ranch existed from 1855 until 1931, encompassing almost 30,000 acres with the Mokelumne River running through it. Lawson Hill ran the ranch until his murder in 1861; his wife Euphemia ("Auntie Hill") then became the matriarch. They had four children: one daughter and three sons. The ranch's location is now covered by the waters of Camanche Reservoir, with a California state historical marker at Camanche South Shore Park. In the first episode, "Palms of Glory", Thomas Barkley's grave (1813–1870) is shown, and a character states that the Barkley patriarch fought and died six years earlier, indicating the year is 1876. However, conflicting time references appear: the episode "The Odyssey of Jubal Tanner" suggests a year around 1884, while a second-season episode references President Ulysses S. Grant (in office 1869–1877). Fourth-season episodes show dates of April 27, 1878, and May 5, 1878, but another episode features Johann Strauss II's "Emperor Waltz", first performed in 1889, implying a later period. Filming took place in Southern California, partially in Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks.

Reception

Despite its popularity, The Big Valley never ranked in the top 30 of yearly ratings. It was cancelled in 1969 as the TV Western craze faded and to make room for more modern series. Ella Smith's 1973 biography noted that ABC cancelled the series mainly due to a poor time slot. In better times, the show outlasted various time-slot rivals on Mondays at 10 pm, including The Jean Arthur Show, Run for Your Life, and I Spy. Its debut episode (airing Wednesday at 9 pm) placed 39th in the Nielsen ratings for the week of September 13–19, 1965. The series was ranked among the top-five favorite new shows in viewer TVQ polling, alongside Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, Lost in Space, and F Troop. Early in its second season, it placed 47th out of 88 series during the week of October 28, 1966, higher than That Girl, Daniel Boone, Petticoat Junction, and The Wild Wild West. The show warranted at least three TV Guide covers and served as a launching pad for two projected spin-offs: a 1968 episode guest-starring Van Williams was meant to lead to a series titled Rimfire, and a March 1969 episode, "The Royal Road", guest-starring Sajid Khan, was also hoped to lead to a series. The rising popularity of CBS's The Carol Burnett Show and complaints by ABC's Joey Bishop contributed to the drama's demise. In syndication, the series proved exceptionally popular in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

Adaptations

Dell Comics published a short-lived comic book for six issues from 1966 to 1969, with the last issue reprinting the first and all issues having photo covers. Several episodes have been combined into feature-length TV movies, including the two-part episodes "Legend of a General" and "Explosion!", and these have been issued on DVD as a box set alongside seasons one and two. In July 2009, filmmakers Daniel Adams and Kate Edelman Johnson were reported to be producing a feature adaptation, with production planned for April 2010 in New Mexico and Michigan. The film, initially intended to star Susan Sarandon and then Jessica Lange as Victoria Barkley, was placed on indefinite hold in 2012 after Adams was indicted for fraud and sued by investors.